Marni Soupcoff: Friendly advice for John Baird: Talk to the charity BEFORE pledging $2-million

Friendly advice for Baird: Talk to charity BEFORE pledging $2-million

As should be obvious to members of the Canadian government, the Syrian conflict is one of those messes in which there are nasty sorts on all sides, making it necessary to be extremely cautious about any involvement. There are scores of innocent victims too, of course, creating a desperate need for humanitarian intervention. But’s it’s just so easy to end up inadvertently aiding bad elements if a country is not careful. That’s why it’s puzzling that the federal government would pledge $2-million to an unregistered Canadian charity, which was created to get medical supplies to Syria, without investigating the group as thoroughly as humanly possible.

Doing so would have spared Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird the embarrassment of having to explain why, five days after the pledge, he decided not to hand over the federal money after all. What happened? The minister said that once the government started actually talking to the charity, Canadian Relief for Syria (CRS), about a contribution agreement, “we saw some of the issues that caused us concern.” The issues apparently included a belief that the money would be used for funding infrastructure, rather than just medical supplies. Might not it have been a good idea to have that little chat with CRS before publicly trumpeting the government’s generous donation to the same?

Also, how does this sudden realization — that maybe handing over a couple million to CRS is not so wise — square with Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s assurances Tuesday that the organization was solid?

“I’m told they [CRS] have the appropriate connections by which to deliver aid on the ground,” Harper said then. And he was adamant that “officials have done due diligence on all the organizations to which we’ve given money.”

That’s clearly not the case. Let’s hope the government realizes it and learns from the mistake before it goes ahead with its next attempt to do good in Syria. Sadly, in that part of the world, something as simple as offering a helping hand takes a great deal of planning and investigation. Otherwise it can become a well-meaning intervention that hurts more than it helps.